EXCLUSIVE The truth behind Trump's bombings and the huge Iran secret kept from the world that's hoodwinked all of America
Two days before American B-2 stealth bombers dropped the biggest payload of explosives since World War II on Iran, trucks were seen lining up outside the primary target at Fordow.
Satellite images showed scores of cargo vehicles outside a tunnel entrance to Iran's key nuclear base inside a mountain.
Donald Trump has insisted that the Islamic Republic's nuclear program was destroyed in the precision strikes, an assessment backed by the CIA and Israeli intelligence.
But there was also a frantic effort to move centrifuges and highly enriched uranium before US bombers attacked, the key question for the Pentagon now is: where did it go?
One possibility, according to experts, is a secret facility buried even deeper under another mountain 90 miles south of Fordow: 'Mount Doom.'
In Farsi, the potential new ground zero for Iran's nuclear program is Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, otherwise known in English as 'Pickaxe Mountain,' located in the Zagros Mountains in central Iran on the outskirts of one of the regime's other nuclear sites at Natanz.
'It is plausible that Iran moved centrifuges and highly enriched uranium (HEU) to secret or hardened locations prior to the recent strikes - including possibly to facilities near Pickaxe Mountain,' Christoph Bluth, professor of international relations and security at the University of Bradford, told the Daily Mail.
Previous intelligence had showed 'large tunnels being bored into the mountain, with possible infrastructure for an advanced enrichment facility,' he claimed.
'The site may be buried 100 meters below the surface. So it is conceivable that advanced centrifuge cascades have been hidden there, but there is no specific evidence at this time to confirm where centrifuges and fissile material has been moved to.'
A satellite picture provided by Maxar Technologies and taken on June 19, 2025, shows trucks positioned near the entrance of Iran's Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant
Previous satellite images have shown heavy construction at Pickaxe, and Iran reportedly dismissed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) when asked what was occurring in the bowels of the mountain.
Experts have suggested that, if there was a centrifuge hall being built there, it could be bigger than Fordow. The site has four tunnel entrances, each is 20 feet wide by 26 feet high, and experts who have analyzed satellite data suggest its tunnels could go well beyond 382 feet deep, further underground than Fordow.
'It would be much harder to destroy using conventional weapons, such as like a typical bunker buster bomb,' said Steven De La Fuente, a research associate at the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington.
According to Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the IAEA, the Iranian regime may have moved about 880lbs of uranium that was being stored in casks the size of scuba tanks and was transportable by vehicles.
If material from Fordow was hauled to Pickaxe Mountain, it would have likely been driven for two hours along Iran's Route 7 freeway.
The emergence of Pickaxe Mountain comes amid a furious row within the Trump administration over the impact of Saturday's strikes on Fordow and two other Iranian nuclear sites, Natanz and Isfahan.
A preliminary US intelligence assessment determined with 'low confidence' that Iran's nuclear program was only set back by a matter of months.
The initial report was prepared by the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's main intelligence arm, which is one of 18 US intelligence agencies.
However, the classified assessment is at odds with that of President Trump and high-ranking US officials who said the three sites had been 'obliterated.'
Weapons expert David Albright, founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, concluded the centrifuge halls at Fordow were destroyed by the numerous 30,000lb bombs the US dropped.
A video shows a Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) 'buster bunker' bomb just before hitting a target during a Pentagon test
After viewing satellite images, he said the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrators (MOP) were dropped at one end of the centrifuge hall, and on a ventilator shaft.
'Basically, what you have is a very big explosion that will blow one way and then perpendicular,' he concluded. 'It would have destroyed the inside of that centrifuge plant.
'We believe that the MOP went into the hall. We think those centrifuges have been mostly destroyed. I think these reports that somehow there weren't centrifuges taken out are just incorrect.'
Albright added: 'It is pretty devastating. A lot of their above-ground facilities that are a critical part of the centrifuge program have been destroyed. A lot of what really is left is sort of what I call the residuals or the remnants of the program.'
Iran likely lost nearly 20,000 centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow, he estimated, creating a 'major bottleneck' for any attempt to restart its nuclear program.
Andrea Stricker, deputy director of the nonproliferation and biodefense program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington, concluded that, for Iran, 'weaponization may be impossible for the foreseeable future.'
But, she added: 'Washington and Jerusalem must act swiftly to eliminate any of Tehran's remaining HEU stocks, advanced centrifuges, and weaponization capabilities.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BreakingNews.ie
44 minutes ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Beijing deal will speed China's export of minerals to US
Washington and Beijing have signed a trade agreement that will make it easier for American firms to obtain magnets and rare earth minerals from China that are critical to manufacturing and microchip production, US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said on Friday. The agreement comes after China retaliated against steep import tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on Chinese goods, and moved to slow the export of rare earth minerals and magnets much needed by US industrial interests. Advertisement Mr Bessent said on Fox Business Network's Mornings With Maria that US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping 'had a phone call' previously 'and then our teams met in London, ironed this out, and I am confident now that we, as agreed, the magnets will flow'. 'Part of the agreement was tariffs coming down and rare earth magnets starting to flow back to the US,' Mr Bessent said. 'They formed the core of a lot of our industrial base. They were not flowing as fast as previously agreed.' His comments come after Mr Trump announced two weeks earlier an agreement with China that he said would ease exportation of magnets and rare earth minerals Advertisement That pact cleared the way for the trade talks to continue. The US has previously suspended some sales to China of critical US technologies like components used for jet engines and semiconductors. But it has also agreed to stop trying to revoke visas of Chinese nationals on US college campuses. Mr Bessent added of critical mineral exports: 'What we're seeing here is a de-escalation.' Advertisement Commerce secretary Howard Lutnick told Bloomberg TV that the deal was signed earlier this week. China's commerce ministry said on Friday that the two sides had 'further confirmed the details of the framework', though its statement did not explicitly mention US access to rare earths that have been at the centre of the negotiations. 'China will, in accordance with the law, review and approve eligible export applications for controlled items. In turn, the United States will lift a series of restrictive measures it had imposed on China,' it said. Initial talks in Geneva in early May led both sides to postpone massive tariff hikes that were threatening to freeze much trade between the two countries. Advertisement Later talks in London set a framework for negotiations and the deal mentioned by Mr Trump appeared to formalise that agreement, setting the stage for Mr Bessent's comments on Friday.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
US Senate referee allows measure to slash CFPB budget, lawmakers say
June 27 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate's nonpartisan referee has allowed Republicans to proceed with a measure to slash funding for the government's top watchdog agency for consumer finance by almost half, a week after blocking an effort to eliminate funding completely, top lawmakers said late on Thursday. If adopted, the measure could add to Republican efforts this year to cut the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's workforce and substantially limit its powers. A top Democrat immediately vowed to try to block the measure. Republican Tim Scott, chair of the Senate Banking Committee, said Parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough had ruled that a measure to lower the legal cap on CFPB funding could be approved by a simple majority vote, paving the way for its inclusion in a sweeping tax-cut and spending bill driven by President Donald Trump. MacDonough's role is to ensure lawmakers follow proper legislative procedure. If approved, the measure would cut maximum CFPB funding to 6.5% of the Federal Reserve's earnings from 12%, meaning the agency would likely employ many fewer people and have a more limited reach. Last week, MacDonough had found that a measure reducing this limit to 0% was ineligible for consideration via a simple majority vote as the House and Senate work to reconcile their spending bills. Scott said in a statement that the change would help cut "waste and duplication in our federal government and save hardworking taxpayer dollars." The CFPB is funded by the Federal Reserve, so is not supported by taxpayers. The central bank earns income from services it provides the financial system and from interest income on securities it owns. Republicans have attacked the CFPB since its creation more than a decade ago, saying it is a burden on free enterprise. President Donald Trump called this year for its elimination, accusing it without providing evidence of politicized enforcement. Democrats have said that since the agency was set up it has returned more than $20 billion to harmed consumers. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee and a key proponent of the CFPB, said in a separate statement that Democrats would introduce a measure to eliminate the funding cut. The Republican move amounted to slashing CFPB funding "so they can hand out more tax breaks for billionaires and billionaire corporations," she said.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Opinion: Iran's 'missing' uranium and the plan to hide it
More than five days after President Donald Trump ordered unprecedented US strikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities, Americans are just now starting to receive the first sober analysis of the attacks. Though the assessments are not coming from the US government and, especially, not from the mainstream American media. Over the past few days, many in the press have been chasing their tails over a classified Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) report, which was disgracefully leaked by someone inside the Pentagon , Congress , or the US intel community. Such a preliminary report, probably based primarily on satellite imagery and geospatial analysis, is considered a 'low confidence' assessment, for no one can determine with any high degree of certainty the status of a clandestine nuclear facility buried deep underground from images taken from outer space. Indeed, the IAEC is an Israeli government authority, but the IAEC has every incentive to understate, not overstate, the impact of the US strikes on the underground uranium enrichment plant at Fordow – the crown jewel of the Iranian nuclear program. Their findings are supported by other Israeli intelligence agencies. Surely, the Israelis would be the first to advocate for additional strikes against Iranian nuclear targets if they believed a threat still existed. Logically, if they exaggerated the damage caused by the US attacks that would undermine their predicate for attacking Iran in the future to destroy any additional capabilities or nuclear weapons scientists. But according to the IAEC, the job is done. 'The devastating US strike on Fordow destroyed the site's critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable,' read an IAEC statement released Wednesday. 'We assess that the American strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran's military nuclear program, has set back Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.' That Israeli assessment, however, comes with a caveat. The IAEC noted that the devastation of the Iranian nuke program can 'continue indefinitely' if Iran 'does not get access to nuclear material.' If Tehran was stashing enriched uranium outside of the facilities at Fordow or Natanz, which were both hit by American GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator bunker buster bombs , then they may have the ability to reconstitute their program, which brings us to the latest nuclear red herring. Some in the media are raising alarm over publicly available satellite imagery that shows a line of cargo trucks parked outside Fordow in the days before the US strikes. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was pressed on this during a Pentagon news conference on Thursday. 'We're looking at all aspects of intelligence and making sure we have a sense of what was where,' he said. I'm certain that both the US and Israeli intel have been looking into this. But I have serious doubts that the Iranians would have moved nuclear material out of Fordow in the days before the strike. It's possible but it is far more likely that they were moving enrichment uranium or centrifuge parts into the heavily fortified mountain fortress. The Iranians, fearing additional Israeli attacks, would most likely have transferred any valuable materials into Fordow, knowing that the Israelis lacked the bombs capable of penetrating the rock shield around the facility and doubting that Trump would order a strike. Additionally, Tehran is well aware that Israel and the US have intelligence dominance over their entire country and would be closely monitoring the comings and goings at Fordow. Would the Iranians really have risked loading enrichment uranium into trucks only for them to be tracked and destroyed by their enemies? The idea strains credulity. Finally, it would be a massive, unimaginable intelligence failure by Israel and the US, after demonstrating extraordinary and exquisite operational skills, to simply forget to monitor a line of cargo trucks leaving Fordow. With that said, the Iranians were likely storing at least some enriched material in locations not destroyed in recent strikes. The third Iranian nuclear facility targeted in the US attack was the Isfahan site, which was hit by Tomahawk missiles, likely leaving deep tunnels intact. If material was kept there, it may still be there. That is why it is now critically important for the US to demand that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei agree to full, transparent and verifiable nuclear disarmament as part of any ceasefire agreement. And no deal would be worth the paper that it is printed on without the threat of American and Israeli military might to enforce it. There's got to be a clear signal from President Trump that any indication that the Iranians are moving materials or rebuilding or hiding weaponization activities will result in an overwhelming US response. And if the US is not prepared to strike again, they need to give the Israelis the green light act and threaten the regime that any retaliation against Israel carries the risk of a US military response.
